Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Best of Me -- by Liimu

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, or even in the wee hours of the early morning, filled with anxiety. It could be anxiety about a client I’m having a hard time managing. It could be anxiety about family dysfunction that turned up a series of nasty e-mails in my Inbox the night before. It could be anxiety about that extra slice of pizza I ate for last night’s dinner that will probably show up on the scale, yet again, or as a new pimple on my chin big enough for me to name. It’s stress, and on those days it’s getting the best of me.

It permeates my entire night and day, coloring my interactions with my family. If it’s work stress, I might check my BlackBerry while playing on the local playground with my children instead of being with them, pushing them on the swings or sliding down the slide, recapturing my own youth. If I’m stressed out about my eating, I might not be as affectionate with my husband, opting to leave the lights off this time rather than throw caution to the wind.

What I am coming to realize is that I don’t want stress to get the best of me. I don’t want work my clients, no matter how much they might pay me, to get the best of me. I don’t want food or dieting or an obsession with having the perfect body get the best of me in a world where the celebrities who define physical perfection pay tens of thousands of dollars to achieve it. What I am slowly realizing is that I want the best of me to be defined by me and reserved for me and those that I love. I want my husband to get the best of me, I want my children to get the best of me. I want to get the best of me.